


too close

by emiltee



Category: Eleven Little Roosters (Web Series), Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Like, No Plot/Plotless, Panic Attacks, Ryan-centric, no one calls them panic attacks, non explicit panic attacks, takes place before episode 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9791972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emiltee/pseuds/emiltee
Summary: Ryan has been in the saboteur catching business for a while now. Well. He's been in it the longest of anyone, considering it's just him. Normally he can handle anything thrown his way. Normally he can distance himself from the situation. But sometimes, it's just too familiar.A brief look at the time between TLR and ELR, mostly just at how Ryan went from one to another. Mostly backstory with minimal plot, just Ryan panicking in a fast food parking lot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First time I've posted to Ao3 in a while, first time ever for this account, but I've got a pile of Ryan-centric fanfiction burning a hole in my google drive account and a need for more ELR content.  
> I wrote this before Ryan actually appears in the series, then made a few edits after. Not completely canon compliant but not glaringly impossible.

It's not the first time things have been too close. It's actually closer to the 17th time when he first sees Agent Moose face to face.

Of course, if you can consider seeing her sipping at a black coffee, 30 feet away across an American Tim Horton’s parking lot as meeting “Face to face”. She had grimaced, and he hid in his car until she left, with his head in his hands and his phone buzzing on the passenger seat.

She'd sent him several messages, ranging from “your tim hortons is.. really bad. do you drink this shit?”,  
To “i don't know what I was hoping for. sorry”, preceded by some much less polite messages.

It was way too close, and peering through his car windows and seeing Agent Moose- not Barbara, he reminded himself- only served to remind him of his last experience seeing a blonde Canadian through foggy glass while he struggled to breathe.

The entire situation was too close- when he contacted his first liaison, the man who hired him, he was initially shocked at his similarities to Burnie- the beard, the self-assured attitude, the masked lack of deference to authority- he had had to ask for the first few details to be repeated. The Colonel seemed to suspect he was partially deaf. Agent Moose reminded him so much more of Barbara, even before he had a face to match her name. She was cunning, separated from her peers, and possibly stronger than them, if he’d heard correctly about her textbook assassination of Jack the Red. Now, he knew she also looked almost identical- styled differently, and much more.. tired. He was mostly thankful that he'd gotten so good at picking up minute details quickly, or he might not have noticed any dissimilarities. He didn’t assume she was only helping to hide her intentions like he once would’ve, and further research persuaded him to trust her enough to meet.

Still, the way Agent Moose had moved- she'd found an easily defensible position with a limited number of approach options, like a professional, but kept looking over her shoulder and flinching at loud sounds. It reminded him of himself, right after the incident- and wasn't that an odd feeling- someone who looked nearly identical to Barbara, now in Ryan’s position. He wondered absently if she would turn out like him if she survived. She probably wouldn’t incur the legal problems associated with an international murderfest, being a government agent already. He himself had had.. Troubles. Being the sole survivor of an innocent dinner party didn't go over well with law enforcement.

Immediately after being interrogated by the police for multiple homicides, he had offered his services as a consultant. He needed the clearance they could offer him to learn everything they knew. They had declined.

Barb had spelled it out so clearly, left so many clues, and he hadn't gotten it. And every time he had contact with his co-workers, the office, even just the news, he remembered how obvious it was. That if he’d just paid more attention, he might still be able to look at his former place of employment without seeing piles of body parts.

He started obsessively collecting all the information he could without overstepping legal boundaries, and eventually, the police came to him when they found themselves stumped.  
He had trouble getting back into normal life, unable to trust strangers and too guilty and too afraid to talk to his old acquaintances. So he threw himself into what had happened, tried to figure out if he could have stopped it. By the time he was done, he understood the crimes everyone committed, he understood how everything played out, and he probably understood Barbara better than she had. He was just too late.

However, he was essentially unemployed, having refused to go back to the office or acknowledge Geoff’s mourning voicemail messages. And, he had learned some.. investigatory skills along the way, having researched his own case so heavily. The idea of stopping the next Barbara had been enough for him to go against every recommendation that he avoid putting himself in a high-stress situation similar to his own, and as a business venture.

The majority of the other bad cases had happened within a year of the incident, back when he still kept tabs on AH. Back when he still kept pictures of 8 old co-workers in his wallet. Back he constantly felt like he was going to fall apart. Like he does. Right now.  
He thought he was past this.

He goes home and puts the pictures back into his wallet, just so no one finds them and wonders why he has pictures of incredibly deadly murder spies sitting around his house. He adds a ninth, staring at it as he mentally writes up another Haywood file, trying to decide how to get this one to Agent Moose, now that he’s ruined the hint to meet from the last file. He could, theoretically, just text her back, but his conversations with clients via phone have always been one-way. 

Though, he supposes, he's never had a client who so easily messed up his carefully laid plans.

He pulls up her contact, attempts to look like he hasn’t just relearned how to breathe, and starts a call. Then he waits.


End file.
